Identifying Physiological Stress Biomarkers for Prediction of Pork Quality Variation

Nikola Čobanović; Sanja Dj Stanković; Mirjana Dimitrijević; Branko Suvajdžić; Nevena Grković; Dragan Vasilev; Nedjeljko Karabasil

doi:10.3390/ani10040614

Identifying Physiological Stress Biomarkers for Prediction of Pork Quality Variation

Animals (Basel). 2020 Apr 2;10(4):614. doi: 10.3390/ani10040614.

Authors

Nikola Čobanović¹, Sanja Dj Stanković², Mirjana Dimitrijević¹, Branko Suvajdžić¹, Nevena Grković¹, Dragan Vasilev¹, Nedjeljko Karabasil¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Food Hygiene and Technology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Belgrade, Bulevar oslobodjenja 18, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia.
² Clinical Center of Serbia, Center for Medical Biochemistry, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia.

Abstract

This study assessed the potential use of various physiological stress biomarkers as indicators of carcass and meat quality traits in 240 pigs subjected to the standard marketing conditions and minimal stressful antemortem handling using Pearson correlations. The most important pork quality traits (pH and temperature, water holding capacity, and color) had limited correlations with stress metabolites (lactate, glucose), stress hormones (cortisol, adrenocorticotropic hormone), stress enzymes (creatine kinase, aspartate amino transferase, alanine amino transferase), electrolytes (sodium, chloride), and acute-phase proteins (haptoglobin, C-reactive protein, albumin), indicating poor reliability in predicting pork quality. Albumin level was moderately positively correlated with live weight, hot carcass weight, cold carcass weight, and back fat thickness. Alanine amino transferase level was moderately positively correlated with live weight, hot carcass weight, and cold carcass weight. Cortisol level was moderately positively correlated with live weight, hot carcass weight, cold carcass weight, and back fat thickness, and moderately negatively correlated with the lean carcass content. Increased lactate dehydrogenase level was moderately correlated with decreased drip and cooking loss. In conclusion, lactate dehydrogenase could help pork producers predict pork quality variation, while cortisol, alanine amino transferase, and albumin could be useful in prediction of carcass quality.

Keywords: acute-phase proteins; carcass quality; meat quality; minimal preslaughter stress; physiological stress biomarkers; standard marketing conditions.